Reading attack good samaritan urged victims to ‘keep breathing’
The chaotic country’s location makes it a good base to launch terror attacks on Europe
A GOOD samaritan who ran towards danger to tend to the victims of the Reading attack urged them to “keep going” and “keep breathing” as they lay dying on the grass.
James Antell, 25, took off his shirt and used it to try to stem the flow of blood as he attempted to save the lives of two of the three men knifed to death.
He told The Daily Telegraph he had acted on instinct in racing to the scene of the stabbings, watching out of the corner of one eye in case the knifeman returned. He is the same age as the alleged attacker behind the rampage.
His actions – and those of a number of other passers-by – will give crumbs of comfort to the victims’ families and friends. Mr Antell said he was giving this interview to The Telegraph because the reactions of those passers-by and the emergency services “exemplify the spirit, bravery and resilience of the people” in contrast to the “heinous terror” inflicted on the victims, causing a “tragic loss of life”.
Mr Antell’s courage emerged only after his actions were highlighted in Parliament by Chris Loder, the West Dorset Conservative MP for whom he works as a senior researcher.
Mobile phone images of Mr Antell, his shirt off at the side of one of the victims, were shared on social media, a move Mr Antell condemned. “The really sad thing about that,” he said, “is it plays into the arms of terror in circulating something that contains distressing scenes. That video would be very upsetting for the victims’ families.”
Three friends were murdered in Forbury Gardens in Reading on Saturday evening: James Furlong, David Wails and Joe Ritchie-bennett, who were sitting in a circle of about 10 people.
The families paid tribute to their loved ones last night. Mr Wails’s parents said: “We are broken-hearted at losing him and in such a terrible way.” The Ritchie family said: “We are heartbroken by what has happened”. The parents of James Furlong said: “James was a wonderful man. He was beautiful, intelligent, honest and fun.”
Mr Antell has declined to say, out of respect for the families, which two victims he nursed or to give details of their injuries. Eyewitnesses claim the attacker pulled out a 5in knife and began stabbing in a frenzy, running round the outside of the circle in an anticlockwise direction, the victims not realising they were under attack until too late.
Khairi Saadallah, 25, who came to the UK from Libya in 2012 and who suffered severe mental illness, is being questioned by the police.
Mr Antell, from south-west London, was visiting Reading for the day, enjoying a picnic with a friend when he noticed a commotion 60 or 70 yards away.
“I stood up and watched from a distance and saw people running, almost lurching rather than running in a straight line,” he said, “At first I thought it was just a group of friends playing a ball game. I watched for another maybe five or 10 seconds and I first realised something was wrong when I saw some
‘I didn’t really understand what was going on but then I could hear two bystanders shouting for help’
people were running quite far and quite fast. It clearly wasn’t a game. I didn’t really understand what was going on but then I could hear two bystanders shouting for help, shouting for first aid, and from a distance I could see three people lying on the floor, not moving.”
Mr Antell, a Cambridge University graduate who had completed first aid courses while training to be a lifeguard, ran towards the scene of the attack. “It was a gut reaction and most people would have done the same. Many did that day. There were several of us trying to do our best.” An eyewitness told him the victims had been stabbed. One of the casualties was unattended and Mr Antell went straight to him, “trying to identify where the injuries were”.
His priority was “to stem the bleeding as much as possible”. “I tried my very best to identify where the injuries were on the body of the casualty and took my shirt and used it to try and apply pressure to the wounds,” he said.
He asked the victim “where does it hurt?” but got no response. “Then all I could say was ‘keep going, keep breathing’.” He moved to nurse the second casualty, about 10ft away. After a few minutes, police and then paramedics arrived. Mr Antell remembers feeling an overwhelming “sadness and grief ” for the victims and their loved ones.
He was at work on Monday. Mr Loder said he wished to praise him in the Commons. The MP likened his actions to those of Tobias Ellwood, the Tory minister who had tended to a policeman stabbed in 2017. “This was indeed a remarkable and extraordinary effort from a young man who has been with us for little over four months,” said Mr Loder.
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, also paid tribute to him and “all other first responders who showed great humility but also that sense of duty in coming together ... to respond and prevent the further loss of life”.
The naming of a 25-year-old Libyan asylum seeker as a suspect in the murder of three men in a Reading park provides a sobering reminder that, while the world finds itself – rightly – preoccupied with the coronavirus pandemic, the threat of Islamist-inspired terrorism remains as potent as ever.
Before the appalling events of Saturday evening, when the victims were stabbed to death by a lone attacker, Forbury Gardens was mainly known as the site of the Maiwand Lion, the impressive 16-ton cast iron memorial erected to British soldiers who perished in Afghanistan more than a century ago.
The Battle of Maiwand in July 1880, during the Second Anglo-afghan War, led to British and Indian forces suffering 969 soldiers killed – including 329 from the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment of Foot – and 177 wounded, an ignominious defeat at the hands of the great, great grandfathers of Afghan tribesmen who these days owe their loyalty to the Islamist Taliban movement.
The battle, and the memorial that dominates Forbury Gardens, is today little more than an historical footnote. And yet, our vulnerability to attack from Islamist extremists, whether they emanate from Afghanistan or Libya, remains as potent as ever.
Nine years after the overthrow of Libya’s long-serving dictator, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the country has lost none of its appeal for Islamist-inspired terror groups. And I am told that, following the May 2017 Manchester Arena bombing that killed 22 people, for which two Libyan brothers were responsible, British security officials continue to actively investigate, as part of anti-terror measures, links between Uk-based groups and individuals and Islamistterror groups based in Libya.
The chaos that has befallen the country since David Cameron’s ill-judged decision to overthrow Gaddafi in 2011 means that Libya is awash with Islamist terror groups.
These include remnants of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) that are operating in the southern desert, and cells in major cities that are linked to the now defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, the al-qaeda-affiliated organisation of which Ramadan Abedi, the father of the Manchester Arena bombers, was a prominent member.
Furthermore, the Islamist cause in
Libya has received a significant boost in recent months following Turkey’s military intervention in the country’s long-running civil war. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision in January to intervene on behalf of Libya’s Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), which relies heavily on the support of numerous Islamist militias, was partly inspired by his desire to see the establishment of a regime in Tripoli similar to that of the Muslim Brotherhood in neighbouring Egypt.
That organisation’s brief time in power in Cairo under President Mohammed Morsi saw the country plunged into chaos because of its pursuit of a radical Islamist agenda, including numerous attacks on the country’s thriving Christian community.
There are signs, moreover, that Mr Erdogan’s Libyan gamble is beginning to pay dividends, to the extent that the GNA forces, which were besieged in Tripoli at the time of Turkey’s intervention, have driven back rebel forces led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar from the outskirts of the capital. They are now advancing east towards the strategically important city of Sirte – historically the Gaddafi clan’s stronghold – and are threatening to capture Libya’s lucrative oil fields.
The prospect of a Morsi-style regime taking root in Tripoli is being viewed with alarm in Cairo, where President Abdel Fattah el-sisi has ordered the Egyptian military to mobilise in anticipation of advancing into Libya in support of rebel leader Field Marshal Haftar.
So desperate are Egypt and its Russian allies to prevent the establishment of an Islamist government in Tripoli that they have lent their backing to Saif al-islam Gaddafi, son of the deposed dictator who is currently under investigation by the International Criminal Court in the Hague for war crimes, an irony, one hopes, that is not lost on Mr Cameron.
Libya is not the only country battling a takeover by Islamist militants. Both Iraq and Afghanistan have seen a significant upsurge in Isil activity in recent months. American security officials estimate Isil currently has 2,500-3,000 fighters active in Iraq, while in Afghanistan Isil has carried out a number of high-profile acts of terrorism, including last month’s barbaric attack on a Kabul maternity ward, in which 24 people died, including mothers, children and new born babies.
The big difference, though, between Libya and other countries battling militant Islamists is that its geographical location means it is much easier to use it as a base from which to launch terror attacks against Europe, a consideration British officials will no doubt be taking seriously as they continue the fight against the terrorist threat.